1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the agricultural machinery industry, and more specifically to the platforms or collecting headers of corn harvesters, and in particular refers to the collecting units or roller chain lifting sets or units of the corn header used for transporting or dragging harvested ears towards the typical processing devices existing following the collection header,
That is to say, upon using a new set that allows harvesting corn planted at different distances between the rows, the invention achieves an effective harvest work in every type of field, regardless of the distance at which they were planted, without need to make modifications in the header equipment.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 37 CFR 1.98
In the field of agricultural activities, corn harvesting machines are well known, and comprise a corn collecting platform or header generally formed by a tubular chassis wherein a certain number of row or collection units are arranged at a distance such to make them coincide with the rows of corn plants in the field, so that there are as many row units in the header as rows intended to be simultaneously harvested.
In Argentina, the usual separation between rows of plants is 525 mm, for which headers of 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16 and 18 are produced, with rows arranged at such distance, and 700 mm, for which headers of 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12 and 14 are produced, with row units for this other distance.
Thus, in order to obtain a higher efficiency in the harvest, it is necessary to transform the header in use for a header that can also harvest at a distance between rows different from the distance for which it was originally built, i.e. it may be necessary to transform a header with a distancing for 525 mm, changing the distances of those row units to for instance 700 mm, also used in the current state of the art. It further requires that, in addition to moving the set of row units, conventional snouts and conventional hoods in use are to be changed for others suitable for the new required distance; generally, the equipment can be transformed for two different row distances, for instance, a header of 16 lines at 525 mm is currently transformable into one of 12 lines at 700 mm.
It should also be kept in mind that besides the difference in the mentioned row distances in the corn planting, it is possible that, depending on the field, in one same lot there are different distances between the lines, due to the fact that the field has been planted with a machine having a different number of rows to that of the rows of the header used for the harvest, and thus the planting machine has more or less rows than the header of the harvester, for instance, a corn field that was planted with a 13 row machine and is going to be harvested with a 18-row header.
Of course, this would cause a dephasing between the distances of different passes of the planter, and those corresponding to the passes to be made with the harvester since its header with its rows would also be dephased and, as a result, the distance between lines of the planter and the harvest would not coincide perfectly, as it should.
This is a serious matter in the state of the art, because it causes an ineffective operation of the harvest when the harvesting equipment works badly, causing evident unnecessary losses. As a result of the impact to the plant, this latter is tumbled, broken or shaken, which causes a loss of full ears, due to the fact that the plants do not match the passes defined by the conventional snouts, and thus the stem is not conveniently guided to the inside of the header through the opening between the snouts, and thus no ear is collected and they neither will be taken over the corresponding parts of the collection header, reason why they are not dragged for later processing, being lost, clearly affecting significantly the harvest's quality and efficiency.